


Watch Out for Them

by Androids_in_Metropolis



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Brotherhood, Fluff, Gen, Help, It Gets Better, Love, Multi, Victim Blaming, help them, victems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 10:31:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4016368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Androids_in_Metropolis/pseuds/Androids_in_Metropolis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam needs someone but doesn't know where to ask for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watch Out for Them

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emily/gifts).



> For Emily, a prompt for her. I hope you like it:)
> 
> Please review and tell me what y'all think :)

Liam snaked away from me again as I tried to hug him after we won the first award. Back then none of us knew what his deal was. Why he thought he was too good for us, and why he wouldn’t join in the group hugs, or shied away from contact sports or high fives. He actually screamed once when Louis tried to hug too quickly. After that we left him alone. 

He seemed to want to be the outcast in our little group. I used to think he was just feeling sorry for himself for whatever reason, and I never bothered to learn why after the first weeks of acting concerned and being brushed off. I just left him alone and talked to the others like everyone else. 

It took months for us to get concerned again, months of being stupid. We were horrid, just leaving him alone, and never asking why. He seemed to accept it, even be happier when we weren’t near him. Liam...Liam Payne. We found out later why his name suited him so well. 

It was a few weeks before Christmas on our first year together as a band, or a group of talented people that got together and made noise-Which ever title floats your boat. We had ‘trust exercises’ to do with each other-Standard stuff like falling into each other and play fighting, as the case may be. We were excited, we being the four of us that aren’t Liam. We teased him because he fell so stiffly, because he shuddered when Zayn drew back his hands to play slap him across the face. 

I grew interested in him again, watching him more carefully. My old friend from college had just become a child defense lawyer and had been regaling me with tales of abused children, and how to tell them apart form a crowed. He worked for the social ladder, defending kids who said their parents were hurting them. Liam Payne filled out the classic signs of physical abuse that my friend had told me over the phone earlier that day. As Louis made to hug him at the end of their exercise time Liam pushed him away rather roughly, apologizing and quickly leaving the room. 

Being the nosey little shit I was back then (Still am, to be honest) I followed him out of the class room we had commandeered, silently treading the hall behind him as he ran to the bathroom. I was surprised when I heard him sniffle and I wondered if Zayn really had hit him, but as I saw his face in the mirror I noted that there was no tell tale red mark, and that wasn’t Zayn’s style anyway. He saw me behind in the mirror and quickly reached up and wiped the tears from his eyes. Liam was pale, and his eyes were already red, his cheeks blotchy. 

I coughed awkwardly, rubbing my ankle against my leg and shifting from foot to foot. I had the feeling I wasn’t supposed to see him like this, and he knew I knew that. 

“You okay?” I said into the empty bathroom silence, my words slightly echoing off the cool, tiled walls. I watched him carefully, his eyes turned towards his toes and his toes pointing in. He looked ashamed and I wondered why...I shouldn’t be here, but I couldn’t leave now. 

“Yeah,” Liam mumbled, trying to smile as he looked up at me. 

I being the fool that I was, am, and probably will always be shook my head. 

“Uh, you know, I mean, Zayn...he wouldn’t hurt you, none of us would, I mean, if that’s what you’re scared off…” I stuttered, blushing further as I was apt to due. I always blush...blushing is my thing. I blush a lot-Always have. I am easily flushed, if you will. “I mean, Liam, uh...you seem scared of us, but I swear, whoever hurt you...if someone did, I mean, we wouldn’t do it.” This time I really did trail off, clamping my mouth closed and blushing a deeper shade of red (if it was possible, which I don’t know if it was) . 

Liam started to really cry then, I remember, and I felt so bad. I wanted to make friends with him, and now I was making him cry instead. I mean, he was close to tears anyway, but I didn’t mean to make them spill...it’s not something I do, make people cry. I can’t stand it. Before I knew what I was doing I had reached forward, slowly, and hugged him to me, letting him cry into my shoulder. At first he was stiff, but he fell limp against me when being as flat as a board began to get tiring. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked haltingly, my tongue feeling thick and awkward in my mouth. I hadn't really thought through this, I hadn’t thought what I would do once I followed him. I am, and was a fool. You can’t argue with that...though I was and am a well meaning fool always. 

“It’s nothing, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Liam cried, and I let him cry. I didn’t say anything. It was awful, and I knew the others would be wondering where we were by now. I tried to push that thought away, and just stood there for the next half hour. We had nothing to say to each other, but some how we kept up a constant mumbled conversation, and the last thing he said to me was ‘Thank you.’

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After that we were a little closer-Nothing like we are now-but closer. I would come to his room some nights, listen to him cry from outside of his door. I wasn’t brave enough to knock for a long time yet. I would just sit outside his door and listen to him quietly, wondering what was really going on behind closed doors, so to speak. 

Liam wouldn’t meet our eyes, and the others just ignored it, long since having decided that he was just stuck up and thought he was too good for them. I never stood up for him back then, and that’s the worst thing I did to him back then. I am still sorry for it...I should have said something, since I knew something was wrong, and all. 

Zayn and Louis slowly caught on, but it took longer for them to understand than for me to knock on his door that night back in winter of 2012. I did though, finally. It was the coldest night of the year, and I knocked on his door and then just walked in. He was crying on his bed, his head in his hands and his shoulders shaking. I felt bad. Of course I felt bad. He was hurting, and I still had no idea what to do about it, but from then on I promised myself I would at least try. I would at least make an effort. 

I sat down behind him, wrapping my arms around him and clearing my throat to let him know I was there. He fought at first, but then he looked up and seemed to know it was me. He relaxed, hiding his head in my chest, and I hugged him to me like a mum would. I was never good at the ‘comforting’ thing. I tried though, and slowly, night after night he taught me how. Hold him close, and not say anything until I knew the right things to ask. Knowing the right questions took longer than it should have, and I had been coming to his room at night for over a week and a half before I finally popped the real questions. 

“Who hurt you?” I asked one night, letting my voice float into the dark, my thick accent sounding harsh to my own ears. I wasn’t sure if this was a good question...if it was any of my business, but I decided it was time to push full steam ahead, and lucky it seemed to be the right question, though he cried harder. 

“Everyone,” he whispered, and those words still haunt me today. How could everyone hurt him? He was sweet, as I was learning. He was kind. He was careful. I didn’t understand how anyone could hurt him, not anymore. I used to think like everyone else-He was cool, he was rude, he thought he was too good for others, and he didn’t really care if we made it or not. I learned otherwise in the weeks that followed, learning what each gesture he made meant, what each careful word held. 

Everyone had hurt him, everyone he was supposed to trust. His family, his friends, his teachers and counsellors. That’s why he was here, I learned, piecing the pieces together carefully as time went on. I was learning his secrets, how he had been hit or yelled at his whole life. I learned why he was here at all-To get away. He could move out, and have a job, and study at the same time if he made it on X-Factor, and other wise, it wouldn’t affect his life at all. He was teased anyway, losing couldn’t make it any worse. Now that he had actually made it he felt stuck-He didn’t want people to know he was hurting all the time, but now I knew, and he didn’t know how to keep other people from finding out. 

I said I would tell them, I could explain it to the others. He shook his head, he said he would do it, and later the next morning as Spring began to dawn on London he and I gathered the other lads in the living room.

“I’ve got some-something to say,” Liam stuttered, looking at his feet as he had the first time we had met for real, in the bathroom of the trust studio. 

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After that things got better for Liam. We, as a group, were more careful. The other’s paid attention to him, and Harry would cuddle up against him like he did to Zayn or anyone else who happened to be sitting down when he crashed onto the couch. He was careful with Liam, though, letting him know every time he was about to wrap him in a bear hug. 

Louis would talk to him about his school work. He helped him with his school work, and talked to him about school and the other students. He quickly became the parent figure of our little group, even more so that before. He would talk to us about girls, and tv, and what needed to be done and when. It was like having the best mother and father in one, and everyone could tell that it was helping Liam come out of his shell. He liked it, and slowly learned to talk about with him and tell him his problems. It helped him a lot, sometimes in subtle ways, and sometimes in big ways, like when they reported his abusive teacher together one thick Thursday afternoon, coming home tired and haggard, but feeling safer. 

Zayn taught him about sports, and helped him find hobbies were he could meet new people. Once it was rolling, it was really rolling. The old Liam had all but disappeared, and now he was a rather confident about-to-be high school graduate. He had friends, and painted with Zayn. 

Us, we stayed the same. We stayed close, talking at night, and sleeping in the back of vans together. We chatted about girls, boys, and colourful and distracting items together. We looked at clothes, and bought matching shoes. We played soccer late at night, and stayed up another days just laughing at each other. He told me his secrets, what he liked and didn’t like. He told me about his life, and in turn I listened and shared my secrets too. I gave him little things-A bracelet, a shiney bottle cap, some shoe laces. He turned them into art, and I would watch on as a pair of shoelaces turned into a lacquered statue. 

Of favorite things to do was climb out on the roof and listen to our favourite records on the battery powered player I had dragged up to the roof on our first summer together. It was nice up there, and we could just talk and be friends up there. It was like the fears and stresses of the world were worthless above street level. We could hide away there for hours when we weren’t working, and magically no one found out where we hid. I wasn’t ever sure if they knew where we were and just let us have our space, or if we really were missing to the world during those calm hours, but I guess that’s only God’s place to know. 

 

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You might be wondering why I brought all this out into the light. You might wonder why I am telling you this, or why you can’t just close your eyes and make it go away. I was never able to make it go away, and neither could he, though we tried and tried for Africa. 

I told you this to show you the now. I am sure you know the now-The fluffy little guy we call Liam, and his way to make everyone feel alright about their messy days. He has that way about him, like he knows what’s going on and knows that for sure it’ll get better. Like he knows when glóir is right around the corner and when hell hurts too much to find the door out. 

He seems like he knows about it because I does, and I’ve heard you guys tease him. I know the things you say behind closed doors, and though he doesn’t let on, he knows too. I can’t stop you from sayin’ those things, I just want you to know what he’s been through. I want you to know about the tears, and what he really knows. There of some things I left out, some things that it’s only for the Lord to know, but everything should add up. I know you are all smart, and some of you even saw through all this, and I hope you understand. I hope you take it to heart. I hope you understand, and I hope you all know how to deal with this. 

I want you kids who are my age, younger or older, to know you can get out. I want you guys to see that it’s okay to cry, and it’s okay to not know what to do. I want you all to see it for real, this isn’t just something that happens in the dark on the other side of the world. This is all real, and you should stand up for yourselves, and when you can’t, find a friend and stand with them.

Friends are everywhere, and not always where you’d expect them to be. I wish you’d look carefully before you judged, but that’s too much to ask of a bunch of kids. I know it is. I wouldn’t ask it of me, so please, just be careful. 

Watch out for the Liams of this word, and help them when you can. 

Just help them, get them out, k? 

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Watch out for your friends, and watch out for your enemies. Most of all, watch out for the no names and the scapegoats. Watch out for the people that need it. Just, be careful. The world isn’t fair.


End file.
